The Not So Sleepy Hollow

Can you guess what this is?

Okay, what about this?

Would you believe it’s this?

After church today, being Easter and all, we stopped up at the farm to see some neighbors and the farmer. It turns out the big storm we had here yesterday knocked down a tree and the farmer decided this beautiful hollow old apple tree near the house needed to go to. Once Mr. A saw it, he knew he had to have it, if only for the wedding. It’s pretty rare you come across a completely hollow tree, especially with such character. I immediately agreed to take it home. First, the decades old bird house came off and went into my trunk.

Then Mr. A went home to get the tractor and back up to the farm to pick up the tree. Once home he bucked it and leveled off the bottom.

My mother-in-l(awesome), who happens to be a horticulturist, came up this weekend by chance. She helped us with the placement and what would look best. After a little hemming and hawing, we all decided against one of our stone walls a little off center would be best. Mr. A and his tractor manhandled the tree into place, until we had it facing the right direction.

After getting it into place, and securing the base with stones, the MIL came up with a great idea to use some of our reclaimed granite to make a seating area next to the tree. After a test of patience, Mr. A managed to get it perfectly balanced and looking awesome. Note: Granite is not easy to work with. It takes a lot of tiny little movements to get it just right!

Put together it looks a little something like this:

Things that still need to be done:

Put crushed stone inside the tree to help keep it from tipping

Place some planting fabric on top of the stone so we can fill it with soil

Plant pretty flowers or vines that will eventually come out of the hollows

So how did I get those first photos? I certainly couldn’t fit in there to compose them, so I just sort of stuck my hand in, pressed the release and hoped for the best. So cool. What a perfect little seat this will be for the wedding, and for afterward until/unless we decide to move it when we do the master landscaping plan.

Total cost? $0.00

My favorite part is that a beautiful old tree, who has seen many happy times, and many people grow up and grow old – now gets to a new life at our home.

Are you going to put any preservative on/in that beautiful hollow tree? It WILL decompose in a few years I fear. My ‘dri-ki’ finally ‘died’. That tree is so lovely. Heather, you have inherited MY love for old trees etc. Thanks for the photos. Love, Grammmmy D.

[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ‘0 which is not a hashcash value.

No preservation on it as of now. As cool as it is, it likely won’t end up in our final landscape plan down the line. It should hold up until we hit that point. I do love a good old tree, nothing quite like it.

My name is Heather & this blog is all about my life with my husband Andy, our two wonderfully sneaky labrador retreivers Winnie and Rosie, and our little piece of countryside here in Maine. Check out the "About" tab above in the navigation to learn more about who we are, and why this blog is called "Like A Cup of Tea".

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